Have you given any thought to your priorities for business initiatives this year? Nowadays many companies have a multi-strand approach to business initiatives. Gone are the days of single major implementations. So, what are your priorities?
Information Security Management will be the most important initiative affecting IT strategy, investment and implementation in business organizations over the next 12-18 months, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ 19th Annual Top Technology Initiatives survey.
IT Governance moved up the list from sixth to second place this year, reflecting the market’s renewed emphasis on corporate governance and responsibility.
“We believe this year’s list is reflective of our environment, with the top four technology initiatives relating to strategies that safeguard an organization’s assets and ensure its well being,” said Barry Melancon, President and CEO of the AICPA.
“This survey enables CPAs to stay up-to-date on the latest technology initiatives to advise their clients, customers and employers on the strategies they should consider undertaking,”.
The AICPA poll was conducted in late 2007 with ISACA, the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) and the Information Technology Alliance (ITA). Respondents identified the top 10 most important technology initiatives for 2008 as follows:
1. Information Security Management
2. IT Governance
3. Business Continuity Management and Disaster Recovery Planning
4. Privacy Management
5. Business Process Improvement, Workflow, and Process Exceptions Alerts
6. Identity and Access Management
7. Conforming to Assurance and Compliance Standards
8. Business Intelligence
9. Mobile and Remote Computing
10. Document, Forms, Content and Knowledge Management
“Recent studies show that investors are willing to pay a premium of up to 20 percent more for shares of enterprises with reputations for good IT governance practices; properly governed IT is critical to an organization’s success,” said Lynn Lawton, International President of ISACA.
Business process improvement was number five on this year’s list, reflecting the significant focus placed on internal controls to reduce error and fraud by both public and private companies. “Clearly, business process and workflow documentation has increased in importance within organizations today,” said Heriot Prentice, Director of Standards and Guidance for the IIA.
Mobile and remote computing was also cited as a priority. “Organizations are realizing substantial gains in efficiency and worker productivity through the extended office hours and increased flexibility that mobile and remote computing solutions bring,” said Ron Eagle, ITA President.
Best wishes
So, five years on, how have things changed?
In the news over the last few months, there have been many examples of organisations that have patently failed to address the concerns expressed in this list. Highest profile among them being the US National Security Agency (NSA), but by implication the security services of most developed nations.
Rather like the time of the Falklands Crisis when Margaret Thatcher pulled the wool over MPs eyes by suggesting that it took more than 24hrs for ‘intelligence’ to reach Parliament, today’s security chiefs are trying to pretend that they don’t capture the details of all our mobile phone calls and exchange them with other ‘friendly’ powers.
Following hot on the heels of the debate about “big data”, this lack of understanding of the nature of technology, knowledge management and data analysis, is disturbing. What do our politicians think Google is up to for example?
Yes, of course, the US NSA was monitoring Germany’s Angela Merckel’s mobile phone. In fact, they were probably amazed that the German intelligence community weren’t doing anything to make it hard for them to do so. In fact, why weren’t they doing so?
Barack Obama denies all knowledge of the NSA’s activity. Which presumably suggests that it didn’t occur to him that the UK intelligence agencies (and his own for that matter) are monitoring his mobile phone.
It’s extraordinary how naive our leaders are.